"He is below, poor dear man!" returned Cicely sobbing. "He has been to the prison to see—" here her voice was lost in tears. "Your brother is better lodged than we had hoped," she continued presently, "along with old Thomas Sprat and some of the townspeople, and we are permitted to send him bedding and refreshment. Your father says you are to use your pleasure as to staying in your room or coming down to supper. He does not desire to make a prisoner of you!" added Cicely, with emphasis.
"Return my thanks to my father," said Anne sorrowfully but calmly, "and say to him that, with his good leave, I will remain here. Tell him I thank him for his goodness, and if he will but add this much, to pray for me, I can ask nothing more."
Cicely repeated the message, adding that she hoped Anne was not going out of her mind, or meditating anything desperate, for she looked as if she had seen a ghost.
[CHAPTER XXII.]
THE TRIAL.
When Jack arrived at the jail where he was to be confined, he found a great crowd gathered round the door, and was greeted from the midst of it with more than one cry of, "God speed thee, dear lad!" "Be of good courage, brother, and God bless thee! Our prayers are with thee!" And he read in most of the faces surrounding him only pity and sympathy.
Father Barnaby frowned ominously on the assemblage, and hurried his prisoner as soon as possible into the jail.
"Let this young man be shut up by himself," said he to the jailer.
"Your reverence must needs build him a cell, then," returned the jailer, who seemed to have no special pleasure in his task. "Every place is full and overflowing, except the dungeon, where there are only two. Shall I put him therein? I think he were best out of sight of this crowd."
"Do so, then," replied the father. "Youth, I advise thee to take the time of thy imprisonment to consider and repent of thine errors. Thou art but young, and thou hast been misled by more crafty heads than thine own. Thou hast also good parts, and I would fain serve thee, and make thee an instrument of good in the Church."